OfficeMax Is Your Early Leader For The Most Insanely Terrible Mailing Mistake Of 2014

Remember that story about the father who freaked out when his daughter received deals for baby clothes from Target because the retail giant’s super sneaky spy network knew that she was pregnant, and that’s how he, in turn, found out? Well, this story blows that one away in terms of horribly inept marketing and mailing oversights. Last Thursday, while going through his mail, a Chicago man named Mike Seay found an advertisement from OfficeMax addressed to him with a very specific bit of information about him: “Daughter Killed in Car Crash.”

Last year, Seay’s daughter was indeed killed in a car crash, and this mailer with such a specific and incredibly needless reminder of that loss has shocked and outraged he and his wife.

“Why would they have that type of information? Why would they need that?” Seay told NBC 5. “What purpose does it serve anybody to know that? And how much other types of other information do they have if they have that on me, or anyone else? And how do they use that, what do they use that for?” (Via NBC Chicago)

All very good questions, and OfficeMax was quick to not answer them at all.

“The manager told her that it was impossible, that this can’t be happening,” Seay said.

Impossible? Sure, if by impossible they mean that it absolutely, 100% happened. But the chain’s corporate management quickly issued a response and put the blame square on the shoulders of a nameless third party that will probably never apologize on its own.

“We are deeply sorry that Mr. Seay and his family received this mailing from us, and we are reaching out to Mr. Seay to convey our sincerest apologies on this unfortunate matter. This mailing is a result of a mailing list rented through a third-party provider. We have reached out to the third-party mailing list provider to research what happened. Based on a preliminary investigation today we believe this to be an inadvertent error; and we are continuing the investigation. — ”

There’s a reason that people like their privacy and don’t appreciate when companies go snooping around in their personal information for the sake of “specializing advertisements and deals to cater to our preferences” or whatever BS terminology they use. I’m pretty sure that this is the best example of the argument against it.

For some reason following it up with ‘Or Current Business’ cracks me up. (you know… apart from the tragic accident part)
Incase this somehow reached a Mike Seay who’s daughter wasn’t killed in a car accident, he can still use these awesome coupons from Office Max.

It’s because last year when someone called him on a telemarketing call he probably answered and said pretty much those exact words. Someone typed it in the only info that pops up on the screen for the telemarketing firm so others, or that one individual could see it and skip the call

No, it was like the case the girl’s name was replaced with the note about her death and was treated as a name. It’s entirely the wrong way to do it, but the “current business” part is just what would follow the name.

Probably a lot less than he thinks. The only way companies get this information is by either asking the customer or buying it from someone else who asked the customer. You’re talking basic things like past residences, maybe some purchase history, etc. It’s nothing that was taken invasively.

And the company isn’t making a big deal about it because, as embarrassing as it is, it’s just a careless mistake. People are so ignorant of how data collection works, they’re assuming this was intentional and taken without their knowledge. That’s just not how this sort of thing works.

There’s a reason that people like their privacy and don’t appreciate when companies go snooping around in their personal information for the sake of “specializing advertisements and deals to cater to our preferences” or whatever BS terminology they use. I’m pretty sure that this is the best example of the argument against it.

Except it’s a not a example of targeting marketing all.

No company snooped around for this detail. My guess is the girl and her dad had the same name on an account and at some point he informed a customer sales rep that his daughter had died. The rep removed her name and left a note that she was dead in the name field so she wouldn’t be contacted again. It’s totally the wrong way to do it, but some of these database marketing systems are old as hell and don’t offer a field to add a note like that (or to let a sales rep delete the record).

No one was targeting this guy because his daughter died and if by some bizarre chance they were, it makes zero sense that that piece of information would ever be included in the name or address field of a mailing. Everyone just seems to think this is some sort of deliberate attempt at marketing without stopping to think that this course of action makes ZERO fucking sense.

It’s bad enough people don’t understand this sort of marketing, but when you, the person reporting on it, are just ignorant, you do nothing by spread misinformation.

that doesn’t make it an acceptable marketing mistake whether it is an accident or not. Its still just wrong to do that to somebody. I’m sure he would have remembered telling the sales rep about the death if that was the case.

I’m not saying this an acceptable mistake, I’m merely pointing out that it wasn’t part of some new marketing campaign, which is what Burnsy (and over other media outlet I’ve come across that reported on this) implies. It was a failure to examine the list they were using–just straight up incompetence.

And I don’t think you understand that this data was bought from somebody else. He probably told a number of people his daughter had died so he’d stop getting mail and phone calls asking for her A company recorded that (incorrectly), sold the data to a firm the resells it (but failed to clean it well enough), and then OfficeMax bought it used it (failing to examine it before using it). There’s no snooping or invasion of privacy here.

So OfficeMax just pulled a Frank Drebin? “Move along nothing to see here.”

What an insensitive piece of garbage whoever wrote this down to begin with. Unless their third party marketing guru decided to offer them counseling for the loss of their daughter, why in the hell would such a thing ever need to be recorded by said third party?